What do viewers think of TV audio and subtitles?
Posted by Alan Archer-Boyd on
As today is World Hearing Day, we thought now would be a good time to talk about a survey conducted by the Audio Production team that shows how audiences with different hearing abilities use subtitles, and experience TV sound across a range of genres.
Creating more accessible TV audio for those with hearing loss has long been a focus of our research. Over the years we’ve taken many different approaches to help ensure audiences with hearing loss get the most out of TV, including our work on production guidelines, personalisable media, and leading in the provision of subtitling.
But with changing viewing patterns and production styles, it’s important to regularly check in and find out what issues viewers are currently having with TV audio. For example, it might be possible to turn down the volume of background music in documentaries or remove the audience laughter from panel shows, but viewers might not be struggling with those issues. Instead, they might have difficulty with accents or diction, which will require a different approach. Subtitling is also an important area of research, as shown by long-running .
As part of this ongoing work, we have conducted a new study with over 600 viewers with different hearing abilities for their opinions on TV audio, and the results are intriguing.
Image above by on Flickr, .
We used the TV10, a 10-question survey designed to investigate how audiences with hearing loss experience TV audio in different scenarios. It was developed by former ±«Óãtv-sponsored PhD student Dr. Lauren Ward and Michael Armstrong.
The survey includes general questions:
"How difficult do you find it to understand speech on television?"
Questions about specific situations on TV:
"You are watching a panel show and one of the panellists is speaking whilst the studio audience laughs and cheers. How easily are you able to understand the panellist’s speech?"
And questions about subtitle usage and viewing sign-language interpreted content. Respondents answered the questions on a scale of 0 to 10. We also included two additional free-text response questions, asking what they dislike most about TV audio, and what programme they had seen recently with poor audio, and the answers to these questions are currently being analysed.
The TV10 had been previously used with individuals , and . Our aim was to collect a larger number of responses from those with and without hearing loss, to see whether previous results held with a larger group size. To do this we harnessed the power of the regular Pulse panel market-research questionnaire. Members of the panel were split into groups of those without hearing loss and those with hearing loss based on a screening question that they answered when they signed up to the panel. There were 346 respondents without hearing loss and 260 with hearing loss.
So what did we learn?
Subtitle usage by audiences with hearing loss shows an equal split between those who never use subtitles and those who use them all the time. An unanswered question our research has been “who will benefit from accessible mixes if subtitles are available?” Our results suggest that approximately half of viewers with hearing loss (the half that don’t use subtitles currently) could benefit from the provision of an accessible audio mix.
A key finding of the study is that subtitle usage by listeners without hearing loss under 40 increases the younger the audience gets. This has been shown by other organisations in the last few years, but this is the first time it has been shown in data collected by the ±«Óãtv, specifically for TV viewing. This suggests that as this age-group gets older and more in need of accessibility services, they will be more likely to use them.
Most of the TV scenario questions showed a difference between those groups with and without hearing loss, with groups with hearing loss generally finding it more difficult to listen to speech in dramas, panel shows, and documentaries. These differences persisted even when taking into account the age differences between people without hearing loss (mean age: 45 years old) and people with hearing loss (mean age 65 years old). In stark contrast, when respondents were asked about news programmes, the difference between the two groups was much smaller. This may be because news programmes are filmed in a studio with a single talker speaking, whereas the other programme genres have multiple sounds and talkers active all at once. These programmes can also include on-location recordings, where background noise and echos will be more difficult to control and can affect how clear the recorded speech is.
All of this highlights the main challenges for those with hearing loss relating to noisy programmes, like panel shows or those with complex soundscapes like drama. A focus on accessible mixes which reduce or control the volume of background sound sources and additional audio processing may be of benefit to those with hearing loss.
Finally, the responses of those without hearing loss were generally positive, suggesting that most TV audio is good enough for them.
Following on from the success of this questionnaire, we have plans to repeat the work with a more targetted questionnaire based on the results of this work. In particular, we would like to investigate in finer detail the genres and situations that caused those with hearing loss the most difficulty. We’d also find out more about the listeners with hearing loss, such as hearing-aid usage and degree of hearing loss.
Thanks to Dr. Lauren Ward for contributing to this article.